Muslim pilgrims in Mecca have circled the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest site, and then converged on a vast tent camp in the nearby desert, officially opening the annual Hajj pilgrimage.

The event is returning to its full capacity for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic.

So far, more than 1.8 million pilgrims from all over the world have amassed in and around Mecca for the Hajj, and the number was growing as more pilgrims from inside Saudi Arabia joined, said a spokesman for the Saudi Hajj Ministry, Ayedh al-Ghweinim.

Authorities have said they expect this year to approach pre-Covid levels of more than two million.

Egyptian businessman Yehya Al-Ghanam said he was at a loss for words to describe his feelings on arriving at Mina, one of the biggest tent camps in the world, outside Mecca, where pilgrims will stay for much of the Hajj.

“Tears will fall from my eyes out of joy and happiness,” he said. “I do not sleep. I have not slept for 15 days, only an hour a day.”

The pilgrimage is one of the five pillars of Islam, and all Muslims are required to make the five-day Hajj at least once in their lives if they are physically and financially able to.

For pilgrims, it is a moving spiritual experience that absolves sins, brings them closer to God and unites the world’s more than 1.8 billion Muslims. Some spend years saving up money and waiting for a permit to embark on the journey.

The rituals during the Hajj largely commemorate the Koran’s accounts of Ibrahim, his son Ismail and Ismail’s mother Hajar.

Pilgrims have been doing the ritual circuit around the Kaaba since arriving in Mecca over recent days. As the last ones performed it on Monday, the pilgrims made their way by foot or bus to Mina.

In Mina, soldiers sprayed pilgrims with water to cool them down in the heat in the desert plain, where there is little respite from the blazing sun.

The faithful set up in their tents, resting in the rows of cubicles and praying together to prepare for the coming rituals.

On Tuesday, pilgrims will move to Mount Arafat, a desert hill where the Prophet Muhammad is said to have delivered his final sermon. Afterwards, they collect pebbles from a site known as Muzdalifa to be used in the symbolic stoning of pillars representing the devil back in Mina.

The final three days of the Hajj coincide with the Eid al-Adha holiday, when Muslims around the world slaughter livestock and distribute the meat to the poor.

In 2019, more than 2.4 million pilgrims participated in the Hajj. In 2020, amid worldwide coronavirus lockdowns, Saudi Arabia limited the pilgrimage to a few thousand citizens and local residents.

Last year, just under 900,000 attended as Saudi Arabia allowed limited numbers of pilgrims from abroad.

Read relevant links: Saudi Arabia bans foreign pilgrims amid Covid-19 fears.

Saudi Arabia has released new details on how it plans to gradually allow Muslims back to Islam’s holiest site in Mecca to perform the smaller, year-round pilgrimage, which has been suspended for the past seven months due to the coronavirus.

Hajj Minister Muhammad Benten said the kingdom will launch an online application that allows citizens, residents of Saudi Arabia and visitors to apply and reserve a specific time and date in which they can perform the pilgrimage, known as “umrah”, to avoid crowding and maintain social-distancing guidelines.

The minister, who spoke during a virtual seminar, did not say when the pilgrimage would be permitted to resume nor how many people would be allowed to perform it at the same time.

The kingdom held a dramatically downsized, symbolic hajj pilgrimage in July due to concerns that it could easily have become a global “superspreader” event for the virus.

Pilgrims were selected after applying through an online portal and all were residents or citizens of Saudi Arabia.

Rather than the more than two million pilgrims the kingdom hosts for the annual event, as few as 1,000 took part after being tested for the virus and quarantined.

Saudi Arabia on Monday began easing some restrictions on international flights for the first time in six months.

The kingdom allowed Gulf Arab nationals and foreign residents of Saudi Arabia abroad to enter the country, provided they are not infected with coronavirus.

The kingdom also allowed for some residents of Saudi Arabia, such as Saudi students with scholarships abroad and foreign embassy staff, to exit and enter the kingdom.

Despite taking early and sweeping measures to contain the virus, Saudi Arabia has recorded more than 330,000 cases, including more than 4,500 deaths.

Canadian Muslims travelling to the Hajj pilgrimage face delays coming back due to a diplomatic dispute with Saudi Arabia that is also prompting thousands of students from the kingdom to scramble to sell their assets and return home to meet a month-end deadline.

As the stalemate continues, Canada is reaching out to its allies, including the United States and European Union, to rally support, and talking to Saudi Arabia to resolve the dispute.

Riyadh abruptly severed diplomatic and trade ties earlier this month in response to Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland’s tweet demanding the release of civil society activists in the kingdom. Riyadh also ended state-backed educational and medical programs in Canada, resulting in Saudi students hustling to return home.

In Halifax, the Ummah Masjid organised yard sales to help students sell their furniture, electronics and even cars.

“Some of them, they only come one week ago and they are prepared to leave,” said Abdallah Yousri, the mosque’s imam. “Some of them, they were in Saudi Arabia for summer vacation, and they just came to sell their products and then [leave].”

As of the end of June, there were more than 5,100 Saudi students with valid study permits for post-secondary institutions in Canada.

Many Canadian Muslims had booked flights with Saudia, the Kingdom’s official airline, to perform the Hajj pilgrimages in the Saudi city of Mecca, which takes place from August 19 to 24 this year.

While Saudia trips to Mecca before August 13 were not affected, returns home prove to be a concern for many.

“We’re nervous as a family because we don’t want her to be stranded in an airport,” Jawad Chaudhry, a real estate broker in Hamilton, said of his mother, who is travelling via Saudia for Hajj.

SILENT ALLIES

Freeland has spoken with officials of the European Union, Germany, Sweden and the United Arab Emirates in an effort to find support, a spokesman for the foreign minister told Reuters.

“We have a dialogue that is continuing with the Saudis, that’s encouraging, we know that we need to maintain an open dialogue with them to resolve this issue,” he added.

But silence from Canada’s traditional backers has sparked some soul-searching in Ottawa.

The big issue is the future of foreign relationships in a world where Canada can no longer count on support from its major allies, said Roland Paris, a former foreign affairs adviser to Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“We’re getting a glimpse of what the world looks like when the United States isn’t a strong advocate of human rights, one in which liberal democracies are keeping their heads down,” Paris said.

The U.S. State Department last week urged Canada and Saudi Arabia to use diplomacy to resolve their dispute, which did not come up during a phone call between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Monday.

Bob Rae, former leader of the federal Liberal party, said Canada has to be more strategic about how to push its human rights agenda.

“There needs to be a clearer sense of strategy about why we are intervening in some situations and not in others, and how one would ever expect countries to take criticism without responding,” Rae told Reuters.

Saudi Arabia’s top religious authority said Iran’s leaders were not Muslims, drawing a rebuke from Tehran in an unusually harsh exchange between the regional rivals over the running of the annual haj pilgrimage.

The war of words on the eve of the mass pilgrimage will deepen a long-running rift between the Sunni kingdom and the Shi’ite revolutionary power. They back opposing sides in Syria’s civil war and a list of other conflicts across the Middle East.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a message published on Monday, criticised Saudi Arabia over how it runs the haj after a crush last year killed hundreds of pilgrims. He said Saudi authorities had “murdered” some of them, describing Saudi rulers as godless and irreligious.

Responding to a question by Saudi newspaper Makkah, Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Sheikh said he was not surprised at Khamenei’s comments.

“We have to understand that they are not Muslims … Their main enemies are the followers of Sunnah (Sunnis),” Al al-Sheikh was quoted as saying, remarks republished by the Arab News.

He described Iranian leaders as sons of “magus”, a reference to Zoroastrianism, the dominant belief in Persia until the Muslim Arab invasion of the region that is now Iran 13 centuries ago.

“BIGOTRY”

Al al-Sheikh’s remarks drew an acerbic retort from Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who said they were evidence of bigotry among Saudi leaders.

“Indeed; no resemblance between Islam of Iranians & most Muslims & bigoted extremism that Wahhabi top cleric & Saudi terror masters preach,” Zarif wrote on his Twitter account.

Saudi authorities normally seek to avoid public discussion of whether Shi’ites are Muslims, but implicitly recognise them as such by welcoming them to the haj, and by accepting Iranian visits to the Saudi-based Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

Tensions between the two countries have been rising since Riyadh cut ties with Tehran in January following the storming of its embassy in Tehran, itself a response to the Saudi execution of dissident Shi’ite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.

Custodian of Islam’s most revered places in Mecca and Medina, Saudi Arabia stakes its reputation on organising haj, one of the five pillars of Islam which every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to is obliged to undertake at least once.

Riyadh said 769 pilgrims were killed in the 2015 disaster, the highest haj death toll since a crush in 1990. Counts of fatalities by countries who repatriated bodies showed that more than 2,000 people may have died, more than 400 of them Iranians.

Iran blamed the 2015 disaster on organisers’ incompetence. Pilgrims from Iran will be unable to attend haj, which officially starts on Sept. 11, this year after talks between the two countries on arrangements broke down in May.

The split between Islam’s main sects dates to a dispute among Muslims over who would rule their community after the death of the Prophet Mohammad, and Shi’ites still regard his descendents as a line of imams blessed with divine guidance.

Today such disagreements over history remain emotive points of tension between the sects, but they are also divided over day -to-day issues including differing interpretations of Islamic law and the role and organisation of the clergy.

In the Wahhabi teaching of Sunni Islam followed by the Saudi clergy and government, Shi’ite doctrine about imams is seen as incompatible with the concept of a monotheistic God.

Letter from Pope Francis Conveyed through Cardinal Tauran and sent to British Muslims

Message for the month of Ramadan by Cardinal Tauran, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. Cardinal Tauran is Pope Francis’s principal advisor in Christian Muslim relations and the theme of this letter is that of mercy.

Pope Francis has declared this year to be a Jubilee Year of Mercy for Catholics – a time when the Catholic Church seeks to promote and implement the mercy of God. In his letter Cardinal Tauran explores the fact that “Christianity and Islam both believe in a merciful God”.

This is the text of the letter received:

PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE
MESSAGE FOR THE MONTH OF RAMADAN  AND ‘Id al-Fitr1437 H. / 2016 a.d.

Christians and Muslims: Beneficiaries and Instruments of Divine Mercy
Dear Muslim brothers and sisters,

1. The month of Ramadan and ‘Id al-Fitr is an important religious event for Muslims around the world, focused on fasting, prayer and good deeds, and is esteemed by Christians, your friends and neighbours. On behalf of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and Christians all over the world, we extend best wishes for a spiritually rewarding fast, supported by good deeds, and for a joyful feast.

As is our cherished custom, we wish to share with you on this occasion some reflections in the hope of strengthening the spiritual bonds we share.

2. A theme that is close to the hearts of Muslims and Christians alike is mercy.
We know that Christianity and Islam both believe in a merciful God, who shows his mercy and compassion towards all his creatures, in particular the human family. He created us out of an immense love. He is merciful in caring for each of us, bestowing upon us the gifts we need for our daily life, such as food, shelter and security. God’s mercy is manifested in a particular way, however, through the pardon of our faults; hence he is the one who pardons (al-Ghâfir), but the one who pardons much and always (al-Ghafour).

3. To underscore the importance of mercy, His Holiness Pope Francis declared a Jubilee Year of Mercy to be celebrated from 8 December 2015 to 20 November 2016. In this regard he said: “Here… is the reason for the Jubilee: because this is the time for mercy. It is the favorable time to heal wounds, a time not to be weary of meeting all those who are waiting to see and to touch with their hands the signs of the closeness of God, a time to offer everyone, everyone, the way of forgiveness and reconciliation” (“Homily”, 11 April 2015).

Your pilgrimage (hajj) to the Holy places, mainly Mecca and Medina, is surely a special time for you to experience God’s mercy. In fact, among the well-known aspirations addressed to Muslim pilgrims is: “I wish you a blessed pilgrimage, praiseworthy efforts and the pardon of your sins”. Making a pilgrimage to obtain God’s pardon for sins, both for the living and dead, is truly a salient custom practice among believers.

4. We, Christians and Muslims, are called to do our best to imitate God. He, the Merciful, asks us to be merciful and compassionate towards others, especially those who are in any kind of need. So too he calls us to be forgiving of one another.

When we gaze upon humanity today, we are saddened to see so many victims of conflicts and violence – here we think in particular of the elderly, and children and women, especially those who fall prey to human trafficking and the many people who suffer from poverty, illness, natural disasters and unemployment.

5. We cannot close our eyes to these realities, or turn away from these sufferings. It is true that situation are often very complex and that their solution exceeds our capacities. It is vital, therefore, that all work together in assisting those in need. It is a source of great hope when we experience or hear of Muslims and Christians joining hands to help the needy. When we do join hands, we heed an important command in our respective religions and show forth God’s mercy, thus offering a more credible witness, individually and communally, to our beliefs.

May the Merciful and Almighty God help us to walk always along the path of goodness and compassion!

6. We join our prayerful good wishes to those of Pope Francis for abundant blessings during Ramadan and for a lasting joy of ‘Id al-Fitr.

Happy Feast to you all!
From the Vatican, 10 June 2016
Jean-Louis Cardinal Tauran President

Bishop Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, M.C.C.I. Secretary

This morning we highlighted deeply offensive comments by ‘Twitter’ spinner Karen Danczuk. It seems that the lives of 717 Muslim pilgrims becomes Twitter chatter for some.

Never to miss an opportunity to build a career on inflammatory statements, Katie Hopkins has also jumped into the mix. Yesterday she tweeted the following:

“717 pilgrims killed in stampede during religious pilgrimage where they throw stones at pillars.  Target practise for Sharia I guess.”

So here we go again. It is as if, in the minds of some, Muslims think the same and live their lives as some form of homogenous block. But what is particularly sickening about the Hopkins tweet is that she takes a religious event meant to symbolise rejecting evil, as being “target practise for Sharia”. She is in effect saying that people on the Hajj, (who according to her world view, are influenced by Sharia), will be practising throwing stones  – and with the association that this is linked to inhumane punishments.

Going to the Hajj is one of the most important experiences for Muslims in their lives. It is a spiritually cleansing experience for many, yet, judging by any reading of the tweet of Hopkins, those who go on the Hajj are practising their stone throwing to possibly harm others. There is only one thing to say about Hopkins in Twitterland – #epicfail.

The post Katie Hopkins: Muslim Hajjis Practice Sharia Stoning appeared first on TELL MAMA.

You simply cannot make this up. Self-publicist and ‘live by Twitter’ Karen Danczuk decided to comment on the deaths of over 700 Muslim pilgrims in Mecca. The pilgrims were crushed as they carried out the sacred ceremony of the Hajj pilgrimage in the ancient city of Mecca.

Instead of sending condolences, Danczuk decided to state the following:

“Many Muslims believe Allah shows his feelings by actions. I wonder what message they think he’s sending following both tragedies at Mecca.” She signed the tweet off as KD.

Without over-analysing the comments, all faiths in some shape or form, believe that God (or gods) show their displeasure or pleasure with mankind through physical actions and manifestations and clearly Danczuk has never read Greek or Roman philosophy or history. Maybe, just maybe, she has heard of the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi who visioned the actions of the Gods through physical manifestations? We think not.

However, the statement is suggestive and could suggest to individuals reading it, that Allah is unhappy with Muslims, hence he strikes them dead. That to a lay reader, could well be its ordinary meaning. As we suggested before, instead of sending condolences, this is the best she comes up with.

The response back from her is even more interesting. She states:

“Yours is a silly comment. So am I wrong? Muslims don’t believe Allah will make his feelings known? KD“

Again what is interesting is that Danczuk lumps all Muslims together. It is as if she thinks that there is some supernatural group-think going on, as if Muslims are all programmed to think the same and believe the same thing. Which leads us to the following – does Danczuk really know much about the dynamics in Muslim communities? We think not, once again.

Finally, we would suggest this. If Danczuk truly wants to get involved in discussions, it might, just might be useful to understand something about the subject when commenting on the deaths of individuals. Something to think about Karen?

The post People Die, Karen Danczuk Ponders What Message Allah Sends to Muslims appeared first on TELL MAMA.